Only the Essentials – My 4 Most Frequently Used Spreads to Begin Each Month
- Kristen Hart
- Feb 8, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 11, 2020
Spontaneity or consistency, that is the question.
Once you have been bullet journaling for a while, you begin to get accustomed to what you like and what you don’t. Meaning, once you create a spread once, you can determine whether it is something you would want to use again or whether once was enough and you should try something different next time. Because this is my fourth time around designing a bullet journal, I made many of those decisions over the past few years. Therefore, this year I had a fairly concrete idea of what I liked and what I didn’t. Today, I am here to tell you all about the 4 spreads that I incorporate into my journal to start off each month.
Hello *insert month here* Welcome Page
For me, one of the best parts of a bullet journal is how you can use it not only for organizational purposes, but also as a way to express your creativity. Therefore, these monthly welcome pages allow me to doodle, draw and color before getting into the scheduling and organizational parts of the month. I love tailoring my designs to the season/holidays that fall within that month. Here are some examples of my monthly welcome pages:
Gratitude Log
Opposite of my monthly welcome page, I have my gratitude log. This is a way for me to quickly (typically one sentence) reflect on the highlights of my day. One of my favorite parts about this log is that it gives me the opportunity to look back over it at any time to be reminded of all the wonderful experiences and adventures I had throughout that month!
Habit Tracker
Accountability is remarkably one of the central things my bullet journal helps me with. My habit tracker aids in this by encouraging me to fill in a box each time I complete something on the list. One of my most enticing things to track is my sleep schedule. As you can see below, I have a section for waking up by 8am and a section for going to bed by 12am. Being a night owl, this is an ongoing struggle that I have, however, my tracker helps me to keep an eye on my sleep schedule so that I am well-rested.
Shelby’s post on Little Coffee Fox is an awesome resource to use when creating your habit tracker and trying to figure out ideas on what to track!
Monthly Calendar
My calendar is an absolute must! As one month winds down, the calendar for the next month begins to get filled in, and as soon as I am aware of an event or activity, I write it down in an effort to not forget anything! My calendar has been a life saver on multiple occasions!
As you can see from the photo below I use a very wide, spread out, traditional looking calendar. However, you do not have to conform to this look. Instead, take a few minutes to watch this video from Carmen Art Journal where she shows you 4 unique ways to create your calendar spread!
Although the various other pages in my journal help to keep me on track and allow me to express my creativity in an organized fashion, these spreads are essential for me to productively start each month. Even though you may not want to incorporate all 4 of these into your monthly spreads, this can help foster new ideas that you may want to implement along your bullet journaling journey!
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